The Ghost in the Mirror (Blogophilia 15.17)

The small woman stood in front of the mirror, studying what she had become. Stronger. Still standing. The reflection of headlights in the bedroom mirror startled her like it had so many nights.

Elena laughed and twirled a copper strand of hair into a braid. The news of Gregory’s death came in a headline she almost didn’t read. They called him generous. Visionary. A loss to the business world. 

Should she dance? Trip the light fantastic on the news?

She didn’t feel relief. Not exactly. Death, especially a natural one, was too easy. Too clean. Gregory never saw the eyes of those he hurt. It was all beneath him. 

The way he smiled, like he owned the air you breathed. The way he touched her shoulder in meetings. The threats. The promises. She went to Julian after the weekend at the hotel. It was more of a confession of her sin rather than Gregory’s  Averted eyes told her all she needed to know. Power protects itself. While Julan knew she had been wronged, he wouldn’t offer a hand. She had learned to disappear in the way that trauma teaches you to fold yourself into silence. To become a shadow in your own life.

She worked nights now. A chain diner off the highway, where the coffee was burnt and the regulars tipped in crumpled singles and sloppy drunken come-ons. It was safe. Anonymous. No one asked questions.

But sometimes, when the rain hit the windows just right, she remembered. The past that had been so promising cut short because she was in the way.

Something shifted in her, though. A weight lifted—not because justice had been served, but because the man who haunted her was finally gone.

She whispered her own name.

“Elena.”

It was the first time she had said it aloud in years.

And it would not be the last.